


0 & 1

by notthelasttime



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hackers, Blind!Ignis, M/M, Paranoia, Vigilantism, but hacking doesn't work like that! (I know I know), cyberpunk themes, hackerman!prompto, heavy handed political commentary because what is subtlety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-11-23 10:01:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11400288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthelasttime/pseuds/notthelasttime
Summary: It had been 10 years since the Empire invaded Insomnia, 10 years since the attack that nearly cost the Prince his life, since King Regis surrendered and the Monarchy was stripped of its power. The Empire, brimming with depravity, held sway over all of Eos.But things were changing - things that were filling the people with a kind of hope they hadn't had for a long time, when the state of the Lucis only seemed to be getting progressively worse. Tension in the city was escalating and citizens, tired of getting stepped on, were ready to fight back. And Prompto? Well Prompto always had a talent for getting his hands on things he shouldn't have, and he had never been able to stop himself where injustice lies. And if things couldn't get changed through the regular political channels without getting blocked by bureaucracy and corruption well, what was the harm in passing along some dirty little secrets to the general public? They had a right to know, and public outrage had always been an effective way to bring about change.Just as long as Prompto didn't get caught.





	0 & 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 01110111 01100101 00100111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100011 01101011 01100101 01100100 00100001

"So Cindy," Prompto said in his most charismatic TV-talk-show-host voice while folding his hands together on the top of the bar. "How do you feel about bukkake?" 

" _What?_ "

Ok, maybe not his best segue. Still, he'd had to grab Cindy's attention with something otherwise she'd just  _yeah_  and  _uh-huh_  her way through the conversation without any real interest, focusing on the task of getting the bar ready to open instead of paying attention. And this was more important, like  _way_  more important. Game changing important. 

"I mean, I'm just curious, from a girls' perspective, you know? You think it'd be flattering? Demeaning? Personally I don't think I'd be into it. One partner's enough to worry about, and all the attention would probably just make me too nervous to uh,  _perform_ , nevermind the cleanup-"

" _Prompto if there is a point to this you'd best get to it before you're out on your ass._ "

"Right! Sorry," Cindy was glaring at him, hands on her hips and the towel she'd been using to wipe down glasses thrown onto the counter. In her defense, customers asking invasive personal questions about her sex life was a frequent occurrence when Cindy was behind the bar, and sometimes even Prompto found himself gaping at some of the shit he overheard some guys say to her. They didn't seem to understand that her friendliness was just part of the job- or they did, and wanted to take advantage of and exploit it.  _Un_ fortunately for them, they often failed to realize that she was the one calling the shots ever since Cid handed the place down, and she did not hesitate to kick people out for that kind of shit. She really didn't need Prompto coming at her with it too.

He put his mock-serious face back on before getting back to the point, "It has come to my attention that one of the Empire's favorite self-made billionaires  _may_ have a bit of a fetish."

"Oh... kay...?"

Prompto sighed. It wasn't Cindy's fault that he had never been particularly good at explaining himself, usually going off on rambling tangents rather than getting to the point, but she had to know just what it was he had gotten his hands on. Maybe it was time to stop trying to be dramatic.

"How long until you have to open?"

"Still got an hour, why?"

He bit the inside of his cheek. "Cindy Aurum, I have something to show you -  _if_  you agree to total and complete secrecy."

"Prompto, who in the hell do I ever tell about any of the weird shit you get up to?" Well, she had a point. But this was different. And while he was _pretty_ sure Cindy wasn't about to rat him out, he had to be positive. They had known each other for years, and she had always done a pretty good job of looking out for him, but sometimes he worried he might cross a line. Either way it was too late now.

"Point taken," he said, "Let's go."

 

 

 

 

Cid and Cindy had been nice enough (or had found him pitiful enough) to let Prompto stay in the basement of the bar when he'd had nowhere else to go. It was crowded with back stock of booze, and despite Cindy's best efforts to keep the place bug-free he usually had some cockroach friends, meaning nights spent in the bar were nights spent with the lights on and a can of Raid within arm's reach. He couldn't exactly complain though, they helped him get an old beat up couch to sleep on (one that he'd spotted on the curb and had Cindy come help him haul into her pickup) and if he went up to the 2nd floor apartment where Cindy lived with her grandfather he was sure to get a home cooked meal. Plus if he looked really pathetic on a given night, Cindy would let him hang out at the bar while she was working and give him free drinks. 

After he'd been hanging around the Aurum's for long enough Cindy had went on a crusade to try and get him to move upstairs with her and Cid, but even Prompto had limits on how much charity he was willing to accept. Besides, the basement made for the perfect unsuspecting place to set up his computer - the big desktop one with two monitors that he'd repaired and refurbished to hell and back. He wouldn't need the monstrosity for this though, and he pulled an old beat up laptop from his bag while Cindy sat down on the couch next to him, springs groaning under her.

Prompto set the computer on the tiny coffee table in front of them (also rescued from the side of the road) and plugged in a flash drive and jacked up the volume before letting his finger hover over a video file (number 1 of 62) before he turned to Cindy. 

"You ready?"

"I'm ready for the godsdamned mystery to be over, get on with it, please. I got a bar to run."

_Alright, you asked for it_ , he thought, and pressed play. 

The cinematography was nice at least. 

The stage was set in an expensive looking hotel suite. The warm lighting, and close focus of the camera could have almost been considered romantic. Loqi Tummelt's face came into focus, sultry bedroom eyes and pouty lips, and then the view zoomed out and Loqi was in all his glory, naked as the day his was born, on his knees and erection on full display. And circling him were a group of men (12 of them from what Prompto could count, though he imagined there might be more) all jerking off. 

Cindy was gaping - mouth open, eyes wide like she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.  

"Prompto... is that..."

"Yep." Loqi Tummelt, the Empire's entrepreneurial golden child, touting overpriced electronics and marketing himself as some kind of financial success story; _if I could start a business from nothing and make millions, you can too!_ If only all of his original patents hadn't been plagiarized, and his other merchandise mostly gimmicky trendsetting bullshit that was more likely to break than actually be useful. Although perhaps Prompto was a little bit biased on the technological front. Either way, it didn't change the fact that you couldn't sell yourself as a self made man when the billions poured into starting up your company had been inherited from your father, though that never stopped Niflheim from singing his praises to anyone that would listen.

Gods bless the Empire.

"What the... fuck... Prompto, _what_ the _fuck,_ how did you...." Cindy had a hand half raised in an attempt to cover her open mouth while she made horrified faces, but kept watching with rapt attention nonetheless, a constant stream of dirty talk now being murmured by various men on screen. Someone had already come on Loqi's face, the first of many. "It's like a train wreck, I can't look away."

Prompto knew the feeling, and Cindy did manage to sit through a decent portion of the video, though right around the time a particularly thick glob of semen shot across Loqi's face while he spit a mouthful out onto his chin, smiling, did she shriek and slap his laptop closed. "Ooooh-kay, I think that's more than enough of that."

The room went uncomfortably silent, Cindy stunned and Prompto anxious, his heart thudding the way it had when he'd first found the videos now that somebody else knew the secret. He hadn't meant to dig them up, he really hadn't. He was just bored. Bored and frustrated and sleepless, hanging out overnight in the seedy 24 hour cyber cafe dubbed _Insomniacs_. It had become a common haunt for him when he'd first been kicked out with no place to stay, and he kept coming back when he realized it was the kind of place where everyone would mind their own business and no one gave him a hard time if he loitered through the small hours of the morning. And okay, _maybe_ he had been phishing, sending official looking emails to Loqi's personal account (stupid easy to find, the guys personal information was all over), filled with fake links to all the dumb shit Prompto could thing of to grab his attention -  _great deals on mens clothing online - the best places for gillonnaires to hang out in Duscae - new realistic dildos, larger than ever!_  But Prompto hadn't really expected the idiot would actually click on one of them, giving Loqi a broken link notification and granting Prompto full access to everything stored on his laptop. Hell, even when he first started poking around the old photos and unanswered emails he never thought he'd come across something like... _that_. But now that he had the videos he was filled with a weird kind of optimism, a feeling like he had found them for a reason, at this exact moment in time, and he had to do something with them.

"Please tell me you have an explanation for this."

Well, sort of. Prompto shrugged. "I just kind of stumbled across them, okay? Look, Tummelt's been fucking everything he can get his hands on -er literally and figuratively. He already exploits his employees and he's been trying to get away with paying them even less, and now he's started lobbying senators too. How long until he gets political backing for all the fucked up shit that goes on in his company? What if he makes it the norm? He's an asshole Cindy, I know you know he is."

"So what, you release his sex tapes instead?"

"Well.... yeah." There were a million ways to go about leaking it to the public. Posting it online, sending it to a news station - one that had  _not_  been reporting nothing but Empire propaganda. He hadn't quite decided yet. A million thoughts had been running through his head since he first found the videos and it had been making proceeding to step two a little difficult when he was hung up on step one. 

"Honey, look, it'll be a scandal for sure, but he's not really doing anything illegal, right? It might be an embarrassment but ain't gonna change things."

"You remember right after the Empire took over and there was that big news story about how they thought they caught the King-"

"- _former_ King-"

"-caught him in a relationship with his Shield and it was a big scandal? They weren't even doing anything, it was just that dumb picture of Clarus Amicitia with his arm around his shoulders and they were smiling at each other, and everybody _freaked out._ " Prompto had been fairly young at the time and even he had known enough to know it was a mess. First people had said he was disgracing the memory of the late Queen, as if he was never allowed to look at anybody again despite how long she'd been gone. Tensions were high and everyone was looking for somebody to blame for the state of things, and soon people started claiming Regis being distracted with a relationship was the reason he'd been weak enough to let the Empire in, and they'd been all but ready to banish him from Lucis, all over a stupid picture that wasn't even scandalous. Regis had enough supporters to eventually drown everyone else out, but things had been tense for a while, and mostly Prompto remembered how the King had to step back and let himself disappear before the scandal boiled over.

"I wanna embarrass him Cindy. I wanna watch him eat shit while I sit back and laugh because he's been doing everything in his power to screw everybody else over in favor of his own bottom line. I'm not looking to get him thrown in jail, I just want him to shut up and go away for a while, if nothing else. And who knows! The public shame might even make him resign."

"His stocks are gonna tank."

"Good! The idiot can afford to lose some money, I'm pretty sure he can't spend it all in this lifetime anyway."

Cindy looked like she was wrestling with something in her mind, probably the moral questions of digging up someone's sex tapes and releasing them for all to see versus the same hate she harbored for Loqi Tummelt and his distain for the working class. 

"Prompto, I just hope you know what you're doing."

 

 

 

  

8 hours earlier, before Cindy knew the secret, Prompto was waiting for a train. 

The music blaring from his headphones kept a steady thumping pace to match his heartbeat, drowning out the static of the early morning travelers in the subway station. There was something to it, cutting out the background noise of chatter and passing trains, schedule announcements and news blurbs that made Prompto feel like he could focus on what was around him, streamline his thoughts. He tracked a man in a suit that had been walking behind him from outside the station, that had followed him through the gates and down the escalators and - there, he turned for the blue line, while Prompto made his way for the red. He let out a breath.

The platform was speckled with people but not crowded, not yet at least, though morning rush hour would be starting soon. 

He'd left Insomniacs while the sky was still dark, scrambling out the door as soon as he'd managed to download every video he could get his hands on before scrubbing his laptop, all the while the sole employee on duty sitting up front had glared daggers at him over the top of her magazine. It wasn't like he'd _known_ he was about to start watching porn when he pressed play on the first video, and he hadn't thought to turn the volume down. Maybe only 3 seconds of audio played before he'd jammed his finger on the mute button so hard he was pretty sure he'd broken it, but that hadn't stopped the employee from knowing _exactly_ what he'd been looking at. Embarrassment would have to wait. 

Was that girl at the other end of the platform watching him? She'd had her body turned towards him the entire time since she walked down the stairs, staring at her phone but she could have just been _pretending_ to stare at her phone, while watching him out of the corner of her eye. Prompto let a clammy hand brush over the right front pocket of his jeans checking for the hundredth time to make sure the flash drive was still there. The girl's phone started ringing and she answered with a smile, turning her back on Prompto while she laughed into the receiver, twisting a lock of hair between her fingers. Cold air from the subway tunnel blew across his face and Prompto closed his eyes, counted to 10 before opening them again. 

It was that shakey feeling he always got when he was running on no sleep, almost like he was feverish, chilled and jittery, the world half split between something hazy, like he was watching everything happen to himself through a foggy mirror, disconnected and separate from himself, but then again too close at times. Colors too bright, noises too loud, an overstimulation of commotion so much that he couldn't decide what to focus on. He knew he should get more sleep, he always told himself he would get more sleep. But dreams were not often kind to Prompto. 

The subway pulled up to the platform with a burst of noise that was blocked out by his music, and Prompto stepped on board. 

Someone, a teenager from the look of him, rushed onto the train right as the doors were closing, crowding into Prompto's personal space. He was quick to put distance between them, hands gripped tight on the straps of his backpack and he headed up to the front of the car. His eyes flickered over the to tiny screen above him, standard on most public transit. A steady stream of news snippets reeking of opinion rather than fact and various ads. The Empire had to get its message out somehow, even to people that stubbornly refused to watch the news at home. He couldn't hear what was being said but they kept flashing the same pictures of the Royal family, one in particular of the Prince that had been plastered everywhere right after the attack, when they realized they didn't know if he'd wake up. A young boy with dark hair in a massive bed, taken a tasteful distance away so that details of the image disappeared. Prompto wondered if it was his birthday or something, they always ran specials on the Royal family when it was someone's birthday. 

Noctis Lucis Caelum, the Chosen King that was supposed to defeat the Empire in the war that had raged on year after year right up until there were talks of a peace treaty that turned into an all out assault on the Citadel as soon as the Empire had been welcomed in. Right up until the Prince was injured, gravely so, barely breathing as he slipped into a coma that he hadn't woke from since. He was young at the time, still a child. The Prince couldn't have been much older than Prompto himself. The truth of the events of that day were hard to come by, but there were always whispers about what had really happened, as much as the Empire tried to stamp them out and write their own truth. 

When King Regis surrendered, they stripped the Royalty of all its power and implemented their own government instead. But with the victory still fresh and the people angry, restless, and loyal to their King, even the Empire had known better than to destroy the Crown completely. Aldercapt let Regis keep his home in the Citadel, let him stay a public figure, albeit a useless one. Most that weren't killed in the attack had either been discharged or discredited, and those hungry for power and ready to sell out their King were offered a chance in the Empire, until it didn't matter how much loyality the King still commanded. He had no people and no power. Nothing but the deserted Citadel, a handful of retainers, and an injured son. 

The train car rocked heavily as it slowed and pulled into Citadel Station, and Prompto got off. 

Early dawn sunshine hit his face as he walked up the stairs and resurfaced above ground again, shoulders jostled by the people around him as his pace slowed and he blinked his eyes that had started to water; _too bright_. There were more people here, downtown in the heart of the city. He fell into step with the crowd and walked up a block to get to Citadel Square. 

It had become habit to pass through the prodigious intersection in front of the Citadel, even if Prompto had no business being there. Massive screens covered the buildings, promoting more government issued propaganda, along side ads and more ads. More importantly it was where people usually held protests, at least those that were still brave enough to do so. In the early days after the war protests had been loud and numerous, stopping traffic, demanding news coverage. But more often than not they had ended in violence, police running in in riot gear, deeming them a threat and indiscriminately arresting whoever was around, shipping them off to a prison in Gralea never to be seen again. When it starting becoming clear that those people were never coming back, that no one could even get in touch with them or confirm that they were still alive, the protests had taken on a careful tone, small in number and quiet, only holding signs, no yelling, no chanting, careful not to do anything that might label them a menace. Beaten into submission by the Empire, just like everything else.

But there were no protesters on this morning as Prompto walked through the square, just the glaring sun and the flow of traffic, Citadel hanging ominous in the distance but...

A man had just stumbled to his knees in a cluster of people that had stopped walking, clogging the sidewalk. Two girls were at the curb, one crying as she looked at her phone, the other pointing up at the news reel playing overhead, but it was just that same damn picture of the Prince in bed, but wait, no, the image was changing, King Regis earlier that morning, being escorted down the steps of the Citadel, camera shaky as it tried to zoom in and get a better view of his face and - had he been _crying?_

Prompto took out his headphones.

" -- _since late last night when the Prince first showed signs of stirring. There has been no official statement from the Royal Family at this time, however those closest to former King Regis have said it's been an emotional morning. Tests are still being done, and while it might be some time before he's fully mobile again, the young Prince Noctis is finally awake_."

Someone had upped the volume so that the newscaster's voice reverberated throughout the Square, the way they only did for breaking news. Prompto walked up next to the crying girl, watched as she hugged her friend and heard her sob, " _He's awake, he's finally awake. The Prince is back to rid of us the Empire for good_." 

 

 

 

 

The problem with Prompto was that he could never just let things lie. 

That night at the bar Cindy dragged her little TV downstairs from her apartment so that everyone could watch the latest news about the Prince, regulars hushed as they sipped their drinks and spoke in low voices so as not to miss any new information. It was an odd sight for the typically rowdy bar, and the quiet was doing nothing to help calm Prompto's mind until he had slipped away into the basement unnoticed.

The flash drive sat in the center of his hand, innocuous. 62 videos. More than enough to ruin a man's life. 

Whatever the Prince was or was not prophesied to do was irrelevant to him. What mattered was that the people had their faith in the Crown restored and maybe... maybe they just needed a little push in the right direction. Prompto was more than happy to provide that push, if it meant the Empire and all its supporters would eat shit. 

It was how he'd always been. He was labeled a troublemaker early on, and as much as he'd tried to deny it the label stuck. It wasn't like he was going out and causing problems just for the hell of it, but he wasn't about to just sit still and keep his mouth shut when someone was getting stepped on. His adoptive parents had found him to be disagreeable, to say the least, always trying to reign him in or punish him just for doing what he thought was right. But it wasn't really until he was almost done with high school had he really acted out.

There was a girl in his class, sweet, shy. They weren't exactly friends but they'd grown up together, going to the same schools. He knew enough about her to know that her family was struggling and she'd been working as soon as she was old enough to try and help support them.

And then one morning she'd shown up at school crying.

Her boss at the convenience store had felt her up, stuck his hand up her skirt, but she wasn't about to go quietly into the night. She tried reporting him to anyone that would listen and all it got her was fired. They took his word over hers and wrecked her reputation in the process. She was a liar. She only brought trouble. She wouldn't be able to get another job, and the money she'd been bringing in had been sink or swim for her family. She couldn't afford to be unemployed.

And Prompto had seen red while she told the story between sobs, a huddle of girls around her trying to give comfort. He'd kicked over a desk in frustration when she'd said  _there's nothing to do about it_ , and the teacher had threatened to give him detention if he didn't settle down, like _detention_ held any relevance when this girl's life was jus ruined for the foreseeable future. And she was just going to accept it. Because no one was willing to listen to her and if she couldn't fix things through reporting him, then what was there to be done? 

So Prompto snuck out in the middle of the night with a bandana over his face and his hair tucked into a beanie and chucked a molotov through the front window of the convenience store and watched the motherfucker burn.

He thought he was in the clear, there were no security cameras and he didn't think anyone had seen him, but that was until the cops showed up to call him out of class for questioning the next day. He was evasive, surly, and it didn't take time to realize they didn't have any real proof it was him, just how outspoken he'd been and a witness that had seen someone, a teenager with blonde hair peeking out of a hat. If Prompto knew anything, he knew that cops weren't your friends, and he resolutely kept his mouth shut, as much as they thought they could intimidate him into speaking. So they'd started showing up at his house instead.

Apparently it had been the last straw. His parents had never been particularly loving, and possible arson had seemingly been the last line to cross. The day after he turned 18 he was kicked out.

"I hope you've learned your lesson," his mother had said in a trembling voice before slamming the door in his face.

What Prompto had learned was that he had to be more careful. 

He sat down at his computer and got to work.

 

 

 

 

Citadel Square, middle of the week during morning rush hour, and Prompto was counting down the seconds until 9 A.M. 

He was carefully situated against a storefront, face down looking at his phone like he was waiting to meet someone, cautiously far enough away from the traffic cameras that dotted the intersection so that he wouldn't be caught on video. Although part of him felt like he was stupid to even be there at all, but he wanted to see it, he had to. 

8:58. He checked the time again. Traffic was clogged up headed east, and people in suit jackets carrying briefcases, talking on cell phones hurried by on foot, preferring to avoid the mess on the road. 

8:59. The Square was back to normal from earlier in the week, more or less. Constant updates about the Prince's condition were no longer blaring through the street, though there were still frequent mentions of him in the news. It had only been a few days, and not much was known beyond the basics. Prompto had a sneaking suspicion that the Empire was still deciding how to spin it. Public opinion would make a difference.

9:00.

Sweat broke out on the palms of his hands and the screens broadcasting news in the square went dark, replaced seconds later with text.

_QuickSilver presents_...

A few curious watchers on the street, wondering if this was some new kind of advertising tactic.

_Loqi Tummelt: The Lost Tapes_

And video number 35 started playing.

He'd chosen the video that was absent dirty talk and took the time to painstakingly black out all of the dicks ( _so_ many dicks). He may have been aiming for public humiliation but he wasn't about to corrupt the children. At least not entirely. 

Tires screeched as someone was rear-ended in the middle of the intersection, too busy staring up at what was playing up above to pay attention to traffic. Just like the other morning, passers by were stopping to watch, mouths gaping, some people taking our their cell phones to snap pictures while others looks positively scandalized. More cars piled up in the street, and someone was laying on their horn. 

Prompto hit the _send_ button on his phone, simultaneously forwarding uncensored copies of the same video file to every politician and government office that had a public email address, before promptly deleting the account. If they managed to track the location from his email (fat chance, seeing as how he'd blocked the IP address of his phone), they'd be led to Citadel Square in the middle of rush hour, filled with hundreds of other people. 

He left the Square immediately after, careful to keep his head down while walking to Takka's diner nearby, another one of his frequent haunts on sleepless nights and early mornings. He sat in a corner booth and sipped on coffee while his hands were still shaking and kept his eyes on the TV in the corner of the room, waiting for the fallout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry my knowledge of hacking is like. what google told me and those 2 episodes of mr robot i watched forever ago - vague homage to it still i guess? but yeah while I did put some actual research into this most of the hacking realism will be dubious at best in the coming chapters  
> shoutout to the NSA agent monitoring my every move now sorry I fooled you into thinking I was a hackerman criminal and now youre stuck looking at my double chin and listening to death grips on full blast with me while I attempt to self diagnose myself on webMD. bad news guys the internet doctor says I'm dying
> 
>  
> 
> no promises on when this is getting updating or where it's gonna go because I have no idea i have no idea where this is going why did i post another half baked story instead of working on something i already started i dont knooowwww

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr @[notthelasttime](https://notthelasttime.tumblr.com/)


End file.
